Web Animation / Dead Fantasy

Warning: May cause awesomeness poisoning.

"You Haven't Seen Anything Yet..."

Dead Fantasy is a CGI crossover Fan Film action series made by Monty Oum, previously known at the time for Haloid, another crossover video. It stars the casts of Dead or Alive (+ Ninja Gaiden) and Final Fantasy (+ Kingdom Hearts) beating the stuffing out of each other in the most awesome ways imaginable.

Since mere words fail to properly describe it, watch it here.

Oum began work on the series in July 2007 following the online success of Haloid, and released its first installment in October of that year. Following the start of the series, Oum went on to work for Rooster Teeth Productions, doing animation for the company's flagship series Red vs. Blue and eventually starting his own series, RWBY. Unfortunately, this meant that Dead Fantasy was put on the backburner.

With Oum's sudden and tragic passing in February 2015, whatever his plans were for Dead Fantasy will unfortunately never be realized. However, another animator who goes by the name Uiyahan has announced his intention to remake the series in HD as a tribute to him; he has the first episode completed and has a Patreon for anyone who wishes to support the project.

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Dead Fantasy contains examples of:

• Animated Actors: Naminé's Skype call shows characters hanging out around the Dead Fantasy set during their break from filming.
• Annoying Arrows: Taken to extremes in Part V.
• Art Evolution:
  • From Part III onward there is a visible jump in polygon count, facial expressions and realism of movement.
  • Here's a preview of Part VI for comparison. It's probably not even the final version of that scene.
  • And on a wider scale, Dead Fantasy as a whole is the pinnacle achievement of Monty Oum's art, which started with photo manipulation.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: At the end of Part II, the electric guitars cut in as Rinoa gets the teleportation spell going.

• Author Appeal: Rinoa was clearly Monty's favourite character. She gets an awesome re-design, several new and cool powers, she's canonically the most powerful female character of Team FF, and she gets the most artwork over on Monty's deviantART page.

• Awesome, but Impractical: Even if it is possible with the circular guards, attaching daggers to your feet seems somewhat counterproductive.
• Badass Boast: Not the characters, since they don't talk (yet), but the author declaring "You haven't seen anything yet" at the end of Part II has to count for something.
• Badass Normal: Hitomi is the only one so far who doesn't use her own magic. She makes up for it with enough Charles Atlas Superpower to throw chunks of building around.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Hitomi, when she gets some materias.
• Battle Amongst the Flames :
  • The third section of Part II happens on a rock platform sliding down a river of lava, the hazard limiting the amount of acrobatics the characters can perform for a time and some heroes needing saving from falling into the molten rock. When Tifa is sent out of the platform, Yuna shoots at her to send her further into a rock wall instead.
  • Part III features Tifa and Hitomi fighting inside the hall of a burning building after being teleported here by Rinoa and one of Tifa's materia-powered punches creates an explosion. Hollywood Fire is played straight here as the flames have no impact on the characters at all.
• Beam Spam: Kairi can do this while in her Final Form analog as Naminé/Nu-13. It's pretty obviously a Shout-Out to the same use of the trope in Kingdom Hearts II as well as Nu-13's moveset in Blazblue.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
  • Played straight in Parts I, II and IV.
  • Horribly, HORRIBLY averted in Part V, which is like a fight scene out of Kill Bill.
• Big Damn Heroes: In order of appearance - Rikku, Hitomi, Tifa, Rinoa, Cloud, and Hayabusa. There's only been a single 1-on-1 match in the entire series, because it was the only time no one else interfered.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The first four parts are relatively light-hearted compared to Part V. Before that Monty Oum made a point that "the girls were having fun", in a sort of supernatural badass training exercise, by animating their faces rather light-hearted. We're pretty sure that Tifa stopped having fun when she became a human pincushion.
• Bloodless Carnage:
  • The first two parts.
  • The fifth part is... quite the opposite.
• Bottomless Magazines: We don't see her load new clips, but every so often a distinctive lock and load sound is heard between her barrages, coupled with an animation of Yuna sliding both guns near her hips for a brief moment. Her Gun Magic attacks, on the other hand...
• Bullet Hell: Several of Yuna's special moves invoke this.
• Cast Herd: The five portals Rinoa opens at the end of Part II serve to pair up characters with their designated opponents (see Mass Teleportation below), and also divide the cast up into manageable groups:
  • Tifa vs. Hitomi, the only fight we've seen more or less resolved so far, with the addition of Hayate, his ninja mooks, and Helena.
  • Yuna vs. Kasumi, with Yuna's Aeons, an army of Kasumi clones, Cloud, Hayabusa and Momiji.
  • Rikku vs. Ayane. Promo shots suggest that they'll be fighting in some kind of underground base.
  • Kairi goes for Rachel, but when Rachel eludes her, she ends up by herself. The WIP footage from part VI shows her transforming into Naminé to go up against Hayabusa and Momiji, with an assist from Vincent Valentine.
  • Rinoa vs. Rachel. We don't know much about what will happen to them, except for a shot of Rachel in chains.
• Cat Fight: Used to have an all female cast until Fan Girls demanded Cloud.
• The Cavalry: Unexpected rescues regularly occur in the series. In Part I, Rikku thwarts Ayane's coup de grâce by snatching her Double Weapon at the last moment before cheekily returning it to her. In Part 2, Tifa also intervenes to save Yuna and Rikku, kicking at her three opponents in short succession to send them fly away. In Part IV, Cloud arrives on his motorcycle and uses his Blade Beam to send Kasumi Alpha clones flying away as they almost kill her and Hayabusa also arrives later to help Kasumi against the clones.
• Chain Pain: The ninjas in Part V attempt to subdue Tifa with chains.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Hitomi again. Everyone else has blatant superpowers, either through Materia or ninjutsu, whereas Hitomi is just very strong, very fast, and really, REALLY good at fighting. Good enough to outfight Tifa, who was loaded up with Materia and pretty clearly portrayed as the second most powerful combatant in Part II after Rinoa, using nothing but Wing Chun.
  • Tifa may have materia, but she primarily fights with her ungodly strength as well, and once deprived of the materia, she continues to devastate most of her opponents.
• Cherry Blossoms: Kasumi's motif, appearing whenever she teleports.
• Clothing Damage: Tifa starting in Part III. By Part V, it's more Fan Disservice than Fanservice thanks to the addition of blood and visible injuries.
• Combat Parkour: Nearly everyone is agile enough to easily jump and run on walls while fighting but Rikku as a Thief and the ninjas Kasumi and Ayane stand out of as the most agile fighters and the ones who are the most comfortable jumping around, especially in the temple arena.
• Combined Energy Attack: Tifa's time freeze ability sets off a particularly impressive coordinated three-way attack.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu:
  • Subverted in Part IV, where ninja clones prove superior to the Aeons.
  • Subverted again in Part V, where individual ninja mooks go down like tenpins, but enough of them can push Tifa to her limits far more than any single fighter we've seen. Judging by what little we see of Kasumi's fight it went down in a similar way.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Part II. Under certain conditions, even running on lava has no consequences, other than setting shoes on fire.
  • Shown Their Work: Yuna can indeed use NulBlaze in Final Fantasy X, here cranked up like everything else.
• Cross Counter: Happens between Tifa and Hitomi at the start of Part III.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • When she is introduced in Part II, Rinoa pretty much wipes the floor with Team DOA.
  • Hitomi delivers one to Tifa in the later half of Part III, with her own Materia.
    • Followed up by Hayate having his squad to finish the job, only moments later in Part V.
  • In Part IV, when Yuna summons her Aeons to help her against the Kasumi X clones, it creates a brief Hope Spot that it might turn the tide in her favor. Nope. The Aeons go down like 10-pins.
• Dance Battler: Rinoa uses some genuine ballet moves in Part II, including arabesques and tour metes.
  • Kairi/Namine gets in on it as well in the WIP footage for Episode VI, dancing to control her keyblade-wings in a manner very reminiscent of RWBY's Penny in her singles match against Pyrrha.
• Deadly Disc: Rinoa's blaster edge, "Silenced Tear".
• Determinator: Tifa in Part V, getting to Implacable Man levels.
• Diving Save: In Part I, Hitomi throws a huge chunk of stone at Yuna, forcing Rikku to shove her partner aside. In Part VIII, Hayabusa sees Momiji attempting a dive attack on Naminé but with a keyblade ready to fly at her; having been content to observe the fight until then, Hayabusa intervenes and grabs her to avoid the keyblade.
• Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: The tornado doesn't seem to affect the fighters at all unless they actually touch the funnel cloud. Of course, since they're apparently made of indestructium, all the funnel cloud does is pick them up for some cool midair fight scenes.
• Downer Ending: Quite possibly the worst one imaginable. Due to Monty's tragic and untimely death, we will never get to see how this series would have concluded.
• Dramatic Chase Opening: Part I begins with Yuna being pursued by Kasumi and Ayane.
• Drunken Boxing: Tifa uses this style to great effect when fighting for and with the "ether" bottles.
• Dual Wielding: A lot. Listed below:
  • Rikku - daggers;
  • Kairi - Keyblades ("Oblivion" & "Oаthkeeper");
  • Tifa - bottles / steel pipes / katanas;
  • Rinoa uses two Swiss Army Weapons - a Gunblade ("Vanishing Star") and a Blaster Edge, an energy shield / boomerang with a cutting edge ("Silenced Tear").
• Dynamic Entry:
  • Hitomi, Tifa and Rachel appear while performing an attack on the opposing team. While Hitomi's introductory kick is avoided by Yuna and Rikku,
  • Including one with a motorcycle and a BFS.
  • Ryu Hayabusa's entrance - eight kills in about a second.
  • Vincent Valentine's entrance, as shown in a preview clip for Part VI.
• Everything Breaks: Obvious trope is obvious.
• Fanservice: YES!. Yes, yes, yes!
  • Besides the obvious, Monty refers to DF and Haloid as "fanservice videos" because he initially only wanted to do movies with original characters.
  • This is just a software test. Honestly. More specifically, he was testing his new Motion Capture system and seeing as he used to be a semi-professional dancer it makes perfect sense.
  • And this one is for testing lip sync.
• Fastball Special: Tifa and Hitomi are strong enough to lift one of the other girls on their arms and throw them high enough to reach the top of a tower, first to strategically place Ayane in Hitomit's case, secondly to send Rikku at Ayane in Tifa's case.
• Feather Motif:
  • Rinoa's wings can be seen as a continuation of her Feather Motif from Final Fantasy VIII. Her custom gunblade, Vanishing Star, is also shaped like a feather.
  • Kairi also seems to have gained one, using a feather to transform into a Final Form analog with 6 Keyblades for wings, controlled by Naminé.
• Flash Step:
  • Hayate seems to be taking a page out of a certain shinigami squad captain's book.
  • While no match for him, Tifa can apparently do a split kick and a jump kick almost simultaneously.
  • Rikku does some after Tifa casts Hastega.
  • Namine also performs this move while maneuvering around Momiji's attacks and catching one of the Keyblades that was knocked away during her final attack.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Tifa, while on a platform, literally picks up one of the ninja standing between her and her target and hurls the poor Mook over the railing. Three more try to restrain her with chains and get tossed around like ragdolls.
• Free-Fall Fight: The second section of Part II happens as both teams fall down a huge tower (the fall at terminal velocity takes minutes) with a near vertical wall nearby to slide from and also stone beams coming out of said wall for a bit of variety and forced Combat Parkour.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • That flickering during Tifa's flashback is not something Monty would leave in by accident.
  • Cloud's entrance is foreshadowed in the title sequence of Part IV with a split second silhouette of him on his bike.
  • In Part V, right after Tifa is defeated, pause and look very carefully at her lower back, under her shirt. Glowing white materia.
• Gravity Screw: A lengthy fight takes place while the girls are sliding down the wall of a huge ass tower.
• Gray-and-Grey Morality: Invoked by Monty himself. He stresses constantly that there isn't a good or bad side, and that everyone should just focus on the fighting.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Tifa grabs Hitomi midair and swings her at Ayane, sending both of them flying.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: In Part II, Tifa grabs a bottle of potion and smashes it on Hitomi's face to crack it open and take a sip mid-fight.
• Ground Wave: Hitomi steals Tifa's Earth materia, allowing her to create ground waves merely by punching it. Nonetheless, its efficiency is limited by Tifa's natural agility which allows her to near-effortlessly jump above the shockwave.
• Gun Fu: Yuna's main combat style, when not using magic.

• Hate Sink: Hayate, due to his actions in part 5, where he sends an entire squad of ninja to take down Tifa^note who happens to be one of Square Enix's most popular characters after she had been weakened by Hitomi. Even then, he wouldn't make a move against her, 'til she was on the brink of exhaustion, having dispatched all but two of his men. During live screenings, the crowd could be heard booing, particularly at the end, where he cheapshots her after she's worn down and bound by his two remaining ninja^note at 4:31, one member of the audience shouts, "That's fucked up!".

• Half the Man He Used to Be: Tifa cuts two ninja in half in Part V, using both the vertical and horizontal varieties.
• Hammerspace: Where Yuna keeps her ether bottles in Part II.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: In her own games Yuna's item use animation has her pull them out of her bra, which makes sense with her Kimono from the first game,(Some kimonos do have pockets there), doesn't make sense with the super tight corset from the second. Also she noticably does reach towards her chest before a screen cut.
• Healing Potion: After Tifa shields her team from lava and is weakened, Yuna takes out a couple of potion bottles to heal Tifa up. However, Team Dead or Alive interferes, forcing Yuna, Rikku and a weakened Tifa to fight merely to grab the bottles back and allow Tifa to drink them.
• Heroic Second Wind: Downed by a multitude of arrows in Part V, Tifa has a flashback of the circumstances by which she found herself in the temple at the beginning of the series, which seemingly gives her enough energy to get back up and fight even more furiously than ever against the ninjas.
• High-Dive Escape: When Ayane performs her "Art if the Raging Mountain God" to make the tower explode, Team Final Fantasy have no choice but to run to the edge of their platform and jump down to escape the blast, still pursued by Team Dead or Alive.
• How Much More Can She Take: EVERYONE. Getting shot in the head at point blank or hit by an axe, which can cut buildings in half. No problem! Tifa is a particularly egregious example.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Where the girls keep their weapons when they need to grab something.
  • Yuna's guns are kept on her lower back with Sticks to the Back.
• I Fell for Hours: In Part II the battle goes into freefall along the side of a building for about 2 minutes 20 seconds. This would put the building at over 7.5 kilometers tall.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In Episode 5, Tifa performs extremely gruesome executions including sending a katana flying right into a ninjas' chest or driving one of the 'flat-face'' metal bars she's been using as baton right into the skull of another ninja.
• Improvised Weapon: In Part V, Tifa is cornered by a squad of ninjas and has lost her materia, forcing her to use a car jack as an improvised weapon. Her Super-Strength allows her to wield it like an unconventional Morningstar until the jack itself breaks away from the handle, turning the thing into a staff.
• Inevitable Waterfall: Lavafall to be precise.
• Intercontinuity Cross Over: Yeah.
• Interesting Situation Duel: Practically every single episode.
• Intimidation Demonstration: When Hitomi first appears in Part I, she does some martial arts moves to impress her opponents.
• Jiggle Physics: Surprisingly little, considering some of the source material. When asked about this Monty Oum's reply was: "I do it all by hand. But only when it's important."
• Kamehame Hadoken: Rinoa blasts the DOA team with Holy inside a tornado.
• Katanas Are Just Better: As Tifa found out the hard way, fists and metal pipes are just no match for a katana or two.
• Ki Manipulation: Kasumi and Ayane use ninpos fuelled by their ki. The most notable are Kasumi's Torn Sky Blast ninpo which she regularly uses, and Ayane's Art of the Raging Mountain God.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Tifa, especially in Part II. Also, Kasumi.
• Lady of War: Rinoa.
• Lightning Bruiser: Tifa.
• Limit Break: Including the Trope Namers themselves.
  • Particular mention goes to Tifa, who can shatter a stone wall using only Meteor Strike and Kasumi's face.
  • During a Big Damn Heroes moment, Cloud uses one we all remember from hours at the console - Blade Beam.
  • Ayane's Art of the Raging Mountain God, which breaks everything.
  • All of Yuna's Aeons. (The ones she summoned, anyways. She never got around to summoning Anima, Yojimbo, or The Magus Sisters.)
  • Rinoa's using her Angel Wings Limit break making for huge spell action, and then uses her Wishing Star Limit Break on the entire other side inside of a tornado, which she created also.
• Limited Wardrobe:
  • Justified, since characters are constantly fighting. Part II and Part IV introduce temporary costume changes, using Drive Forms and Dress Spheres respectively.
  • Everyone in the music videos gets alternative outfits, mostly Hotter and Sexier ones.
• Little Miss Badass: Kairi. Oh so very, very much.
• Lovely Angels AND Amazon Brigade: Part I is the former, Part II and beyond are the latter, as the cast expands for both sides.
• Ludicrous Gibs: As soon as Tifa gets her hands on a sword in Part V, things get exceedingly gory.
• Magic Missile Storm: Yuna's Scatterburst in Episode 2. Jumping high in the air, she fires dozen of magic bursts that all converge on Team Dead or Alive, heavily damaging them.
• Mass Teleportation: The end of Part II. Seems to have no other function than to pair characters with their preferred opponents.
• Mega Manning: In Part III, Hitomi proceeds to steal a few of Tifa's materia (read beat them out of her) and starts using their magic herself.
• Modesty Bedsheet: Tifa's partially transparent sheet stays up even without an arm to hold it up.
• Mook Chivalry: Averted by the ninjas under Hayate's command in Part V. She properly gang up on Tifa, forcing her to use improved weapons, and they even attack while she performs acrobatics.
• More Dakka: Yuna demonstrates this after Tifa casts Haste on the FF team during Part II.
• Ninja: The entire DOA team, minus Hitomi. And Helena, if she ever fights.
• No Flow in CGI: Surprisingly averted, especially considering it's an amateur production.
  • Tifa's outfit in V, in particular, ripples fairly realistically in the wind and as she moves.
  • And taken to its logical extreme with Kasumi's skirt in the Music Video, to the point where it's moving too much to look like real fabric. This directly leads to numerous panty shots.
• No, I Am Behind You: In Episode II, Tifa under the effect of Haste performs this on Hitomi who's already flying because of Tifa herself punched her a second earlier which means she ran faster than Hitomi could be sent flying.
• Off with His Head!: Tifa decapitates one of her opponents in Part V.
• One-Man Army: Tifa in Part V, and this is while bleeding from multiple wounds and suffering more as she goes.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Tifa takes several sword cuts with visible blood sprays in part V and isn't slowed down in the slightest and even after having a sword stuck through the upper arm, is still able to use that arm just fine. And then there are the arrows.
• Orphaned Series: For three years since Monty's sudden passing in 2015, the series looked this way. However a new animator has expressed interest in a HD remake of the series and possibly continuing it. As of writing, he has so far completed the first episode.
• People Jars: At the end of Part III.
• Party Scattering : Team Final Fantasy forces Team Dead or Alive to scatter as Rinoa conjures five portals from the Moon, each of the remaining teammates forcing their rivals into a portal save for Rachel who evades Kairi and goes with Rinoa. The move backfires as far as we can tell since it isolates Yuna and Tifa who are then respectively outnumbered by Kasumi clones and ninjas.
• Popularity Power: The DOA team suddenly being able to go toe-to-toe vs. fully-levelled Final Fantasy characters is a subversion, since if you go by fandom backing Team Final Fantasy should be winning by a landslide (and they kind of do during most of Part II). In Part V's live screening you can hear everyone cheering for Tifa and quite a few people wondering who Hayate is.
• Portal Cut: Poor, poor Bahumut.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Given the nature of the series, everyone has gotten general boosts in powers and stats. It's inherently necessary, since basic levels of power vary widely between the games (there are FF characters who can crack open continents, and any Keyblade wielder worth their salt can kill planets). Normally, this would result in everyone being put at the lowest common denominator. Monty went the other way.
  • Yuna makes full use of Gun Kata, which she isn't shown to use in FFX-2.
  • Rikku is often seen using Capoeira, which she's never used in FF X or X-2. And there was a contest, where fans submitted designs for new dresspheres for her to use.
  • Tifa spams Materia throughout the series, when canonically she's never been shown to use any. And part 2, has her use drunken boxing, a fighting style she's never been shown to have experience with.
  • Rinoa now has a gunblade and is in permanent Angel Wings status.
  • Kairi goes from only taking out a handful of Shadows, to suddenly having Sora's Drive Forms. And her transformation into Namine (who doesn't fight at all), practically turns her into Nu-13 instead.
  • Kasumi utilizes her Torn Sky Blast and teleports much more liberally than in DOA.
  • Ayane is fighting with the sword that Genra, her deceased father, used, despite never being shown to use it herself.
  • Hitomi uses wing chun in part 3, despite being stated to be a karate practitioner in DOA. Monty also endowed her with Herculean levels of strength and durability, making her seem more like Ryoga Hibiki.
  • Previews and statements from Monty seem to imply that Rachel will be tapping into her fiend blood in ways she hasn't shown before.
  • Momiji is shown to be armed with incendiary kunai and dual sai blades, in addition to her naginata and bow.
• Power Gives You Wings:
  • Rinoa has angel wings to accompany her new levels in badass.
  • Naminé gains a curtain of floating Keyblades, some of which can fire lasers.
• Punched Across the Room: And kicked, and thrown, and blasted. Tifa and Hitomi even perform double knockdowns on each other this way. The laws of physics must be out to lunch. Or they're too busy watching.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs:
  • Tifa pulls off a few kick versions of this in Part II. Hastega is a glorious thing.
  • Hitomi performs this on Tifa during Part III after she switches to Wing Chun, probably as a nod to Ip Man.
• Red Shirt Army: In parts III and V respectively:
  • You'd think that Yuna summoning Shiva, Ixitol, Valefor, Ifreet, and Bahamut might've turned the tide in her favor. Nope. The Kasumi X clones, due to Power Creep, Power Seep, slaughter them all after the initial shots fired.
  • In part V, Hayate used his own squad as disposable fodder, to force Tifa to exhaust her remaining energy fighting them off. Which allowed him to knock her unconscious without a fight.
• Reverse Grip: Kairi holds Oblivion like this.
• Roboteching: Employed by Yuna's bullets.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Depending on who you count as "royal" there are three princesses, two high priestess-esque White Magician Girls, and one clan leader/king dishing out asskicking at any given time.
• Rule of Cool: Physics be damned. Expect to see everything from a free-fall battle down the side of a impossibly tall tower, to battle royale of inside of a friggin' tornado.
• Second Hour Superpower: Hitomi being able to punch the materia out of Tifa at the end of their fight, but not at the beginning. Why can she USE said materia immediately, without being told how? Anyone's guess.
• Serial Escalation: Each episode escalates the conflict by introducing new characters who enter the fray, whole new armies of clones and ninja clans, and the initial friendly brawl from the first three episodes takes a new unfriendly turn when ninjas attack Tifa with lethal intentions.
• Set Swords to "Stun": Almost everyone is being blasted in the face with magic. How are they still standing exactly?
  • Kasumi, Ayane, Rikku, Rinoa, and Kairi are all using blades.
  • Yuna has guns. They appear to fire blasts of light.
  • Rachel is using her war hammer.
  • Tifa and Hitomi are hitting with concrete-crushing force.
• Serial Escalation
• Sleep Cute: Yuna blacking out on Cloud's shoulder as he drives is an "awwwww" worthy moment.
• She-Fu: The female characters are exceptionally acrobatic and graceful in their movements, with the exception of Hitomi whose straightforward karate style contrasts with the constant leaps and bounds of everyone else.
• Shock and Awe: In Part II, both Tifa and Ayana counter each other's lightning blasts at the beginning of the Free-Fall Fight.
• Shout-Out:
  • Some of Tifa's Drunken Boxing moves are lifted straight from Jackie Chan.
  • Hitomi's last attack in Part III is identical to Black Star's Big Wave technique. Some of her moves before that look suspiciously like counterattacks from Tekken.
  • Tifa, when holding a pipe as weapon, using at least one move from Kilik.
  • In Part III, there is a shot of Tifa standing all badass with a wall of fire behind her. 9 out of 10 viewers will immediately remember Sephiroth as he appeared in Advent Children.
  • In the same video, Tifa and Hitomi do a slow-motion simultaneous punch, which is exactly like - even in camera angle - the one Jin and Kazuya pulled on a trailer for Tekken 6.
  • Keeping with the Tekken references, Yuna uses a couple of Lili's moves in Part II.
  • Hayate "pulling a Byakuya" on Tifa, as one fan put it.
  • The opening sequences for Parts III and IV are shout outs to the ones from FFVII and FFVIII. IV's is also a shout out to Kingdom Hearts II.
  • In Part V Tifa takes a page out of Cloud's book and while being surrounded jumps onto a passing train.
  • In part II, Hitomi almost perfectly emulates Daigo's epic tournament victory from Third Strike against a hasted Tifa. Even the "parrying" sound effect is used (but instead of comboing into the win after parrying Tifa's attacks, Hitomi gets flipkicked in the face, and eats a Final Heaven shortly afterwards).
  • In Part III, right after the rather lengthy opening credits "When Angels Cry" comes up on the screen as the soundtrack from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening starts.
  • Based on what little we've seen of Naminé in previews and promotional stuff, it looks like she's gonna be borrowing some moves from Nu-13. The ending of the preview, complete with Vincent Valentine beside her, makes it look like she's channeling Xehanort from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
  • Ayane's ninjutsu, particularly when she does a series of hand signs before smashing the tower, borrows the "jutsu use" sound effect from Naruto.
• Slide Attack: As part of a combination attack, Hitomi rapidly slides under Yuna and Rikku to make them fly into the air.
• Soft Glass: Tifa just smashes through a window at full speed and keeps on going. Mind you, this is Tifa we're talking about.
• Speed Blitz: In Episode II, Kasumi crosses blades with Rikku and shows off her superior speed by attacking from several directions in short notice. Later, Rikku and the Haste status buff overwhelms Ayane too.
• Spin Attack: Valor Form Kairi seems to be aping Roxas's fighting style as well as his twin Keyblades.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: Ayane can block bullets with her double sword Genra without even holding it.
• Squee: Admit it, YOU probably did when you first watched these.
  • A rare male example, usually with the appearance of a new fighter. Tifa!
  • And a very straight example later with Cloud.
• Stepping Stones in the Sky:
  • More like stepping stones in the middle of a friggin' tornado.
  • Tifa also uses the Dead or Alive fighters as time frozen stepping stones to climb high enough to knock them all into position for Rikku's tackle attack.
• Status Buff : Tifa uses Haste on Team Final Fantasy in Part II, giving her side a definitive advantage with their temporary Super-Speed. Thankfully for Team Dead or Alive, Rachel comes in and destroys the tower, interrupting the buff.
• Stepping-Stone Sword: Rachel perches on her hammer while waiting for the fight to fall to her.
• Summon Magic: Yuna pulls out her old Summoner garbs to fight the Kasumi clones. Sadly, the Aeons weren't a match for the Teleport Spam Zerg Rush tactics the clones employed.
• Super Rug-Pull: In Part III, Tifa prepares to shoot a fireball. Seeing this, Hitomi backflips, grabbing the concrete while doing so and sending a huge piece of the floor toward Tifa, blocking the fire.
• Super-Speed: Team FF in part 2, courtesy of Tifa's Hastega.
• Suplex Finisher: In Part 2, Tifa performs a suplex on Hitomi as they fight on a falling platform, sticking her through the stone.
• Sword Pointing: Rinoa does this toward her opponents in Part II.
• Taking the Bullet:
  • Okay, so Kasumi only takes a punch, but a pretty damn hard one.
  • Rikku seems willing to Take The Stone Pillar in Part I, when she shoves Yuna out of the way, but she does manage to dodge it herself.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The DOA team is notably less friendly and more curt towards each other. Kasumi seems to push Hitomi away as they get back up, and when Kasumi places her hand on Ayane's shoulder to suggest using her ninpo Ayane flatly brushes her hand aside. Rachel drops in without so much as acknowledging her teammates. It's a contrast to the FF team, where the characters often greet each other cheerfully and go out of their way to protect each other.
• Teleport Spam: Kasumi's favorite tactic in battle. She can use it with both allies and enemies. It can also cut pieces of the landscape or opponents. Her clones can do it too, which is bordering on Game-Breaker. Nevertheless, Yuna manages to counter it twice during Part II, by predicting exactly where she would teleport to or just by completely saturating the air with bullets.
• Theme Music Power-Up: A side effect of the fact that Monty actually builds his movies around the songs and not vice versa. The biggest comes in Part V - right after Tifa's flashback, the gentle music suddenly jolts back to life, and Tifa goes on a bloody rampage.
• Three Minutes of Writhing:
  • The bonus music video, featuring Kasumi, Tifa, and Cissnei. Which probably qualifies as a kink for many.
  • The sequel ups the ante with nine girls dancing at once.
• Three-Point Landing: Rikku does one after she finishes using her cousin as a pommel horse in Part II.
• Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Rinoa throws her Blaster Edge at Ayane, turning it into a Deadly Disc. Ayane blocks the shield, but Rinoa links Holy Magic into the Blaster Edge, creating a pillar of Holy Magic that still damages Ayane.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Or should we say "Launching your enemy's sword with a pipe always works"?
• Thwarted Coup de Grâce: In Part I, Ayane's coup de grace is interrupted by Rikku who jumps and steals Ayane's sword before cheekily returning it to Ayane.
• Time Stands Still: Tifa's Stop materia, which can even freeze enemies in midair.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Zigzagged during the series. In Part II, Rikku tries to change Dressphere but Ayane shoves her aside, stopping her transformation. Played straight in the case of Yuna who changes into her Summoner Dressphere, presumably because she also unleashes a wall of magic to protect herself; for her part, Kairi turns into Naminé while Momiji and Hayabusa watch, said transformation taking several seconds during which the ninjas could have easily attacked.
• To Be Continued: After the end of every episode so far, usually in those exact words.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Kairi goes from a Designated Victim to Action Girl Magic Warrior in 4 seconds after activating Valor Form.
  • Rinoa was already fairly powerful in Final Fantasy VIII, being a Sorceress and all, but she was still just a powerful spellcaster. In Part II, though she goes full-on Valkyrie, complete with sword, shield, and wings.
  • Hitomi gains Herculean level strength and durability and can instantly use Materia.
• Tornado Move: Dead Fantasy II. During the fight on the ice, Rinoa Heartilly creates a huge tornado that sucks all of her opponents into itself.
• Train Escape: Subverted at the beginning of part V, when Tifa leaps onto a passing train in an attempt to escape Hayate and his squad. She doesn't make it.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Very much so.
• Victory by Endurance: Hayate adopts this tactic in Dead Fantasy V, by having his ninja assault Tifa after she's been beaten and severely weakened by Hitomi. Hayate doesn't attack until she's on the brink of exhuastion; having expended her remaining energy dispatching all but two of his squad.
• Waif-Fu: Taken to absurb degrees with most of the female characters being rather svelte but having superhuman endurance, agility and strength.
• Wall Run: In Part I, Ayane is briefly seen running up a column to catch up to Rikku and Yuna.
• We Have Reserves: A possible explanation for why Hayate lets his ninja fight against Tifa, dying in the dozens, eventually weighing her down with numbers. And he does that in spite of the fact that he can down her at pretty much any time he wants, since she was already tired from fighting Hitomi.
• Wham Episode: Parts III and V, which introduce blood, gore and death to the series. Part IV is nothing like that. Unless you feel sorry for the Aeons.
• Wing Shield: During one of the fights, Rachel fires an energy attack at Kairi and Rikku. Rinoa sweeps in from behind and folds her wings around them, protecting them from the attack.
• Wipe the Floor with You: In Part II Tifa does this to Kasumi while they're running down the side of a building, and then runs her through several stone pillars for good measure.
• World of Badass: Oh so much. Everybody is ridiculously powerful in this.
• Worthy Opponent: Possibly Hitomi and Tifa. Supported by one interpretation of Hitomi slapping Hayate after he and his ninja Zerg Rush absolutely brutalize Tifa.
• Your Eyes Can Deceive You: After getting hit with Tifa's Darkness spell in Part III, Hitomi gets right back up and starts fighting blind. And winning.
• Zerg Rush:
  • Applies to the Dead or Alive team as a whole, as they continually use superior numbers to gain the upperhand in each episode. Anytime the Final Fantasy side tries to even the odds, another member from the DOA team will join in soon afterward.
  • At the end of episode III, Helena releases the Kasumi X clones, whose rushdown tactics and Teleport Spam quickly made mincemeat of Yuna's Aeons (episode IV).
  • It continues in episode V, where Hayate sics his squad on Tifa, after she's been weakened by Hitomi.

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